


our horizons can still meet

by murphysarc



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Death, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Murphy-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 06:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9708467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphysarc/pseuds/murphysarc
Summary: in which it takes an explosion, a death, and black rain for murphy to understand his true feelings for bellamy. post 4x02 and onwards.title from "all of the stars" by ed sheeran.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i realize i've used the roman numeral thing so many times but pls bare with me

**i.**

Emori tells him that the desert is safe.

Murphy disagrees, of course - he prefers to spend his time on the outskirts of somewhere open. The woods are best. That way, he can remain enclosed, away from the view of others, but he can keep watch at the same time. By now, after all this time, he knows how to survive.

But, Emori tells him that the desert is safe, and he would follow her anywhere.

It’s strange, really, but he still feels the compulsion to hide. Every time they hiked over a sand dune, Murphy would stop and crouch, peeking over the top to check that no one was coming to chain his body to the ground and beat it senseless. Emori just laughs, crossing the hill without hesitation, pulling his arm so he does not fall behind.

“The desert is safe,” she says. “I grew up here. I know it well.”

He doesn’t  _ want _ to be here, but he is, because she - 

Emori tells him that the desert is safe, until it swallows her whole.

 

**ii.**

The woods are no longer a safe haven.

A lone knife bounces against his waist as he runs, Bellamy’s gun long since lost to the sand. Wind whistles by his ears. Murphy pauses every few moments, his eyes shifting across the landscape. Nobody that he can see is following him.

The shadows, though, they lurk in the background, eyes narrow, fingers curled. When he closes his eyes, they jump and he falls, into the ground. Roots of the trees snake around his body and push him down, until he is gone, finally returned to the earth, finally returned to her. 

Murphy keeps his eyes open, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to close them forever.

Arkadia lies within sight. He does not want to enter, but the ground has taken away any illusion of choice that space once granted him.

 

**iii.**

_ “Come with me to Arkadia,” he once told her. “It’s different now.” _

_ “The desert is safe,” she replied. “I know it well.” _

_ Her screams of terror remind him that people can lie. _

  
  
  
  


**iv.**

Murphy doesn’t recognize the guard posted at the makeshift wall, but he honestly doesn’t care. The guard hesitates upon seeing him, but then lines his pistol up with Murphy’s head. 

“Hey,” Murphy says. “Put that down before you shoot yourself. I’m from the Ark.”

Emori’s voice is in the back of his mind, telling him he shouldn’t be so rude to his own people. He doesn’t listen. Emori is dead. Following her logic will not get him anywhere.

_ Emori is dead- _

No. If he thinks about it, he’ll never close his eyes again, and he can’t keep the shadows waiting much longer.

“I can’t let anyone in,” the guard calls. 

Murphy wants to roll his eyes, but he can’t find the strength. “Fine, then, let me talk to Bellamy. He’s in charge of all the guard stuff, right?”

The guard’s jaw locks. He doesn’t say anything, but the safety falls off the gun.

“Whoa, okay. Clarke, then - let me talk to Clarke!”

The impact of traveling the distance that he has is catching up with him. Exhaustion creeps at the edge of his sightline, but he remains steady.

The guard looks over his shoulder, looking at someone, then gesturing silently towards Murphy. Something in the gesture works. The gate opens just a crack, enough for Murphy to slip inside before it shuts again. 

A tired, dead-eyed Clarke meets him. “Sorry about that,” she says, before she turns and leaves, walking across the field. Murphy has no choice but to follow.

 

**v.**

_ The Ark was beautiful, once. _

_ Once, it held the pinnacle of humanity, the best minds that the world had to offer. Once, it was full of music, and bittersweet celebration, and success.  _

_ Once, it was home, but all minds must die, even the great ones. _

_ Murphy doesn’t remember much of his father, but he does remember a final, gentle touch, an “I’ll be back for you,” before the arms of space took him away. He does remember the fire he lit caressing the metal of the Ark. He does remember being in solitary for three days, before they decided it was safe for him to join the masses of delinquents.  _

_ He wonders what the great minds who built it would think of all this, what they would think of the fact that now it lies in the middle of a barren field, broken into pieces.  _

_ There’s irony in there, somewhere, but he can’t find it. Murphy never claimed to have a great mind. _

 

**vi.**

“What’s going on?” he asks as soon as he follows Clarke into the Ark. Even he can recognize the tense air. Clarke doesn’t meet his gaze, but she stops. 

“Why did you come back, Murphy?”

He isn’t prepared for this question. Why  _ did  _ he come back? The lack of thoughts that come from this question give him the answer. “I have nowhere else to go.”

She nods, expecting this. “You have a right to know. We’re all going to die in six months. The radiation is building. We won’t be able to survive it.”

Murphy has survived many things, and remarkably, he can still get up in the morning. He is not prepared to stop yet, because if she died only six months before the rest of the world, he might as well return to the sand and fall next to her. 

“Maybe not,” he says. “I have a-”

“There’s no point making plans,” Clarke snaps, finally turning to meet him. “We’re all dead. That’s it.”

Murphy stops for a moment, for once watching someone else’s walls break down instead of his own. “What happened here?”

Clarke sighs and shakes her head. “A week ago - some of our people went on a mission to get a machine that could have saved all our lives. They didn’t make it back.”

He nods. It makes some more sense now, at least. Death is something that he understands - after all, he brings it. “I’m sorry.” He’s going to stop. He  _ is _ , until -

“It’s just not the same without him,” Clarke whispers. Murphy knows he isn’t meant to hear the confession, but it doesn’t stop him from acting on it.

“Who went on the mission?”

A pause. “Bryan. Miller. Harper. Monty, and…” Clarke’s eyes fall on the ground and her jaw tightens. She is trying not to cry. Murphy is fairly certain that she has never cried in front of anyone, but tears have a way of coming back.

He’s about to say she doesn’t have to finish, but then a horrible, horrible thought breaks into his mind. Bellamy is always joined at Clarke’s hip, and yet, he has not shown his face. The guard at the gate only tensed when Murphy spoke Bellamy’s name. 

There is no raven-haired boy in sight. This can only mean - but it can’t be - but - 

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says, pulling him back to the present. “What happened to you? You’re covered in sand and dirt...and weren’t you with someone? A girl, right?”

Murphy understands that he brings death, but he’s starting to think that he  _ is _ death. 

“I hope she and Bellamy are having a good time together,” he says. 

 

**vii.**

_ “You aren’t the only one trying to save someone that you care about.” _

_ Murphy regrets a lot of things, but these words will never fall on that list. As he rose in the elevator, Bellamy at his side, ready to survive the end of the world, he came a realization. _

_ He was not there trying to save one person he cared about. He was there to save two. _

 

**viii.**

Months pass.

Murphy does not bring up the idea of the bunker again. It does not seem fair to their memory. 

There should not be a world where John Murphy remains breathing, yet Bellamy Blake and Emori do not.

 

**ix.**

_ “John! Help me, please, please!” _

_ She is falling through the sand. The earth is claiming Emori as one of its first victims, the quicksand up to her waist. They are stranded, in the middle of the desert, Murphy’s hand the only thing keeping her afloat. _

_ If she had just waited - if she was more like  _ him _ , peeking over dunes in order to remain alone - if only - _

_ “I love you, John,” she yells, tears breaking the sand even faster than she is.  _

_ “Emori!” _

_ “I love you-” His grip breaks, but he is not the one who broke it. The sand reaches over her face, pushing and pulling and then, the world is still.  _

 

**x.**

Black rain pours from the sky, stinging his skin, burning him to pieces. Screams tear the air. He cannot tell if he is screaming, or if it is the sound of the world dying. 

Blood pours from his body and he falls, his head slamming against the ground but his eyes stay open. Colours blur, and soon, the world begins to fade.

Murphy is dying, he’s dying, but he can’t be sad about that, because Murphy is death and if death claims Murphy, then maybe that is the end and there will  _ be _ no more death -

This is wishful thinking, because he might be the last man alive.

_ “I’ll be back for you. I’m doing this for you. The desert is safe.” _

Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies - 

“Murphy.”

The world focuses, so jarringly that Murphy groans, black rain tearing at his blistered lips. A raven-haired boy kneels in front of him, smiling, hands gently holding Murphy’s face. “It’s okay,” he says. 

“Bellamy,” he tries to say, but there is no air in his lungs. 

“You’ve made it this far,” Bellamy says. “You can make it just a little further. I believe in you, John.”

And then, he becomes Emori, and then his father is there, his mother, but ultimately, it is Bellamy that steals his final moments. “Why?” is all he can say, but it is not directed at the boy in his sight. It is towards the earth, the sky, to space, to the sand, to the screams that have long since died all around him. 

Bellamy only smiles. “You are not the only one trying to save someone you care about.”

Murphy closes his eyes. They do not open. The shadows have won. 

**Author's Note:**

> also?? ik all of my fics are kind of the same but honestly it all stems from the lack of emotional development for murphy like. if my fav white boy just gets some healing time the murphamy fics (might) stop i swear
> 
> kudos/comments keep me sane through my theatre hell week :) thanks! <3


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